In memoriam for J. D. Salinger

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This is such a perfect mimicry of Holden Caufield, it's a crack-up. It calls to mind, also, the difficulty of certain cultural productions *not* being fully realized outside of their original language/culture [which is partly why the Chaucer blog is so hysterical--because, in its blending of contemporary idioms and Middle English, it *does* feel relevant, often eerily so]. In France, the title of "Catcher in the Rye" is "L'attrape-couers" [the trapper of hearts]. In Italian, simply, "Il giovane Holden." I never really appreciated Salinger's book until a friend asked me if she could read it out loud to me this past summer [she was re-reading it in English, as well as in French and Italian: don't ask why; she's just crazy about this novel, as I never really was]; for the first time, I realized how beautiful it is, something my 20-something college self never did. The novel is supposed to be irresistible to the young and perhaps annoying for the middle-aged whom the narrator wholeheartedly scorns. For me, it was the reverse. Another case for the translatio files.